Portland Pilot Finds Apartment Energy Reporting Requires Six Hours
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Portland apartment owners could initially spend a median of six hours collecting and reporting building energy data under a proposed expansion of the city's benchmarking requirements, according to the results of a year-long pilot program.
The Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability study tested the reporting process at five apartment properties ranging from 37,500 to more than 642,000 square feet. Active work took between three and nine hours per building, and participants estimated that subsequent annual reporting would take two hours or less.
The findings arrive as City Councilor Candace Avalos advances proposed Climate & Health Standards that would apply to multifamily and commercial buildings of at least 20,000 square feet. The measure would add nearly 1,200 apartment properties to the more than 1,000 Portland commercial buildings already subject to annual energy and carbon reporting.
Including Multifamily
Portland has required large commercial buildings to report energy use since 2015. The city began considering an expansion to multifamily properties in May 2024 as part of a broader effort to reduce emissions from buildings, which accounted for 42% of Portland's carbon emissions in 2023.
Although most public comments supported the initial proposal, some respondents warned that compliance could cost tens of thousands of dollars per property, require owners to add staff, increase rents and necessitate difficult exchanges of utility information between landlords and tenants.
The city commissioned the five-building pilot to test those concerns. Participating property managers created accounts through the Environmental Protection Agency's free Energy Star Portfolio Manager platform, obtained utility consumption data and submitted their findings to Portland.
None needed to communicate with tenants to gather the information. The city concluded that benchmarking alone would not require additional property management staff, rent increases or tenant interaction.
"Easy to Do"
Participants described the process as "easy to do" and "pretty basic," although first-time users found Portfolio Manager unintuitive. They said assistance from the city's Energy Reporting Help Desk was essential.
Obtaining utility data created the largest variation in completion times. One property required eight hours for that step, while another completed it in less than one hour. Portland recommended continuing to assist first-time users, working with utilities to improve data aggregation and scheduling benchmarking during winter, when leasing activity is slower.
The pilot measured only the administrative burden of benchmarking. The broader ordinance would also require covered properties to reduce emissions 20% from their baseline by 2030, followed by additional 20% reductions every five years until reaching zero emissions in 2050.
Portland estimates those standards would ultimately reduce total citywide carbon emissions by approximately 16%. Regulated affordable housing and several other property categories would generally be exempt.
Opponents contend that the cost of physical improvements needed to meet the emissions targets could burden smaller property owners and be passed to tenants. Those potential capital costs were not evaluated by the pilot.
Oregon already requires multifamily properties of at least 35,000 square feet to begin reporting energy use by July 1, 2028. Portland's proposal would lower the local multifamily threshold to 20,000 square feet and require annual reporting.
Source: GlobeSt/ALM